


Idealized

by RedHorse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cults, Emotional Manipulation, Handsome Voldemort, M/M, Power Imbalance, and all other forms of manipulation too, underage 17/40
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-27 03:33:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20941586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHorse/pseuds/RedHorse
Summary: Three times Voldemort saw Harry. One time Harry saw Voldemort.





	Idealized

**Author's Note:**

  * For [exarite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exarite/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [exarite](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exarite/pseuds/exarite) in the [October_Flash_Fest_Part_One](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/October_Flash_Fest_Part_One) collection. 

> Originally posted anonymously as part of a discord flash fest. Editing posting date now to reflect author reveals. <3
> 
> **Prompt:**
> 
> Cult leader Tom meets vulnerable, lonely, orphan Harry :)

1.

In hindsight the first time was when Harry got beaten up, the day after his sixteenth birthday. He only did it to save his own life. They were kicking him so hard with no signs of stopping.

He never knew what would happen, how that strange surging energy would fulfill his requests. He just let it out with the wish _help_ and it raced out of his body and flung his attackers away. One struck the brick wall of the alley, another scattered the trash cans sitting outside the rear entrance of the restaurant where Harry had been hoping someone would set out something edible.

When Harry lurched to his feet and rubbed some of the blood from his brow with the back of his hand, he saw a figure standing at the point where the alley met the sidewalk. It was a moment’s glimpse of a man’s silhouette, and whoever it was turned and stepped out of sight the moment after Harry looked.

Later he knew it had been Tom. But was it coincidence? Had Tom just stumbled upon him? _That_ Harry couldn’t figure out.

2.

The second time was when he'd been following Malfoy's gang for weeks, running errands that were deceptively simple but which involved going sketchy places and doing inexplicable things. Painting a skull in white on a brick wall outside the police station. Leaving handfuls of white feathers glazed with red paint on the doorsteps of random addresses. He never asked questions and he never looked anyone in the eye. They gave him money and pulled strings so he always had a bed at a shelter. He hadn't slept on the street all winter and he was rarely hungry. 

His most recent errand was to walk down a certain street wearing a silver mask. One of the Lestrange brothers had given him a long dark trenchcoat along with the mask. Harry saw the shoulders and backs of other people in trenchcoats and knew that he was part of a parade of masked people, walking slowly down the streets of London. He felt a thrill. It was a singular feeling to be a part of something, even though he didn't know what it was.

An impulse seized him and he glanced up at the second-story window of the building he was walking past. There, leaning out into the cool sunlight of the winter mid-morning, was a handsome middle-aged man, his arms folded on the windowsill, his eyes fixed on Harry.

Harry looked back. On his forearm, the man had a tattoo Harry could easily see despite the distance. It was the same shape Harry had painted on a wall weeks before. The hair rose on his arms. It was as though the man knew, despite the mask, exactly who Harry was.

3.

Harry had never liked needles. He breathed through his nose while the tattooist pressed the lines into his skin, slowly and steadily, overtaking his arm from wrist to elbow. 

Tom leaned over him with clinical interest. "Be sure to leave the edges sharp," he murmured to the tattooist, who grimaced and hunched his shoulders defensively.

"Doing the best I can, my lord," he muttered.

"Please," Harry said tightly, "my lord, don't loom over the man who has a needle in my arm. You'll make him slip."

Tom took a step back, his gaze alighting on Harry, his smile soft. Secretive. Harry's heart hammered in response. Tom lifted his hand and stroked Harry's hand from his forehead and Harry strained not to lean into the touch.

"Clever," Tom said, a rumble of amusement in his voice. He pulled his hand away too soon and not for the first time, Harry yearned to be older, someone who could be more than just a recruit... "Clever boy," Tom said, his look lingering just long enough to feed Harry's hopes. But when he looked away, Harry thought it must have been his imagination.

1.

On his seventeenth birthday, Harry was given his first real mission.

This wasn't creative, nonviolent terrorism. He stared back at Tom, disbelieving.

"You want me to...you..."

Tom was sitting near the window. He always liked to have a view of the world. He turned at the waist to face Harry who still stood in the middle of the room, feeling adrift. They were alone. Malfoy had shown Harry in, then gone out at once.

"Seventeen now, aren't you?" Tom asked, as though Harry hadn't said anything. As though the conversation were just beginning. As though he hadn't told Harry to...to...

Tom stood. He looked different. Maybe it was the light behind him, an amber halo. The light in his eyes, blood-red. "I've always known you were special, Harry. I've always known you could be more to me than any of the rest of them."

He touched Harry's cheek, then his lower lip. Despite his shock, Harry panted against Tom's fingertip.

"Well, Harry? What will it be? What will _you_ be?"  
  
Harry didn't know how to answer. And yet he felt fate-driven, like there was only one thing he could say, one thing he could be. The power that lived in his body flowed restlessly through his veins and under his skin, eagerly or in protest he wasn't sure.

"Yours."


End file.
